The Billionaire's Allure (The Silver Cross Club Book 5) Read Online Free Page A

security guards, a few dancers, a busboy—but it was early, still. I wished I still smoked. I could go out back with the dishwashers and forget all my troubles until the cigarette burned down to the filter.
    I hadn’t smoked in years. I hadn’t even thought about smoking in years.
    Friday night was the second busiest night of the week, topped only by Saturday. Clients began arriving as soon as the club opened, a slow trickle at first, but by 5:00 there was a steady stream of men coming through the door, stockbrokers cutting out early, investment bankers with potential clients, business magnates looking for an hour or two of fun and relaxation before they headed home to the wife and the kids. I did my best not to judge the clients—they were my livelihood, after all—but I couldn’t help thinking it was sad and a little pathetic the way they paid women for attention and sex. Maybe it was really about power: that they could get the dancers to do anything, say anything, and smile the whole time.
    I tried to stay away from the men like that, the ones with shiny teeth and greedy eyes. Not all of the clients were like that. Many of them seemed to treat the club as a nice place to have a drink and talk business, and the dancers were a pleasant bonus. Some of them, older gentlemen, had grandfatherly relationships with the dancers, and tipped well and urged them to go to college. Those men were my favorites: the regulars who showed me pictures of their grandchildren, played a few rounds of chess with their friends, and happily went home to their wives.
    The evening went smoothly. All of the waitresses who were scheduled to work had showed up on time. The dancers were in peak form, eager to rake in their Friday night tips. And the clients were drunkenly content, and all more or less behaving themselves, at least for the moment.
    And then, around 8:00, I turned from the bar, a tray of drinks in my hands, and Max was there, seated at a table like one of the clients.
    I didn’t stumble, or give up and run for the hills. I moved smoothly forward. It wasn’t a surprise, I told myself, that he had showed up again. I had been expecting it.
    And still the sight of him set me reeling.
    He was wearing that same suit, which convinced me that he really had stolen it. None of the clients wore the same suit two days in a row. One of them had explained to me that the wool needed to “breathe.” I didn’t necessarily believe that—it seemed more likely that wearing a different suit every day was a signal that you had enough money to afford all of those suits—but either way, Max was even wearing the same tie. I had a good eye for menswear after working at the club for so long.
    His hair was styled differently, though: parted on the left, and combed away from his face.
    He had always been good-looking, even as an awkward seventeen-year-old, but now he was handsome . Solid. He looked like a man.
    Tubs, passing by with an empty tray, said, “That guy’s here again.”
    Great. All of the waitresses would be watching me, then, to see what I did.
    This little tête-à-tête wouldn’t benefit from an audience.
    I delivered my drinks to Mr. Miller and his friend, a Mr. Nguyen who was visiting the club for the first time and couldn’t tear his eyes away from the dancers. Understandable: they were really a sight. Mr. Miller smiled at me as I set their drinks down, winked, tilted his head toward his friend, and said, “I think we’ve got a convert.”
    “I heard that,” Mr. Nguyen said, without looking away from the stage.
    “I’m glad you’re both enjoying your evening,” I said, smiling, polite, a shiny veneer of friendly interest drawn over me like a second skin, when inside I was roiling with doubt and confusion, and painfully aware of Max staring at me from across the room.
    “Very much, very much so,” Mr. Miller said, and slipped me a hundred dollar bill.
    I thanked him, tucked it into my bra, and went across the room to meet my